Gaming machines, such as slot machines and video poker machines, have been a cornerstone of the gaming industry for several years. Generally, the popularity of such machines with players is dependent on the likelihood (or perceived likelihood) of winning money at the machine and the intrinsic entertainment value of the machine relative to other available gaming options. Different players, changing popularity of types of games, geographic location of a gaming machine on a casino floor, time of day and day of the week may cause players to be attracted to different types of gaming machines. Shrewd operators consequently strive to monitor the amount of play of different types of gaming machines and manage the availability of different games to attract frequent play and hence increase profitability to the operator. Therefore, there is a continuing need for gaming machine manufacturers to continuously develop new techniques for managing different games and gaming features on remotely reconfigurable gaming machines to maximize frequent play.
A centralized gaming controller can cause remote gaming machines to be reconfigured to provide different games and/or variations of games. Such as system permits the operator to easily change a gaming machine (remote terminal) from one game to another as well as varying characteristics of a game. This gives the operator an opportunity to advantageously change the games being offered to the players to maximize play. However, controlling a variety of schedules for a plurality of gaming machines can be cumbersome and prone to implementation errors especially when new schedules or gaming machines are to be added or deleted.